OHR Useless With Dark Skin

I would really prefer to NOT have OHR but seem to have no choice

You, Olu.F. and me ... the legions are growing!

Best solution given the direction many watches' feature sets are going:

Settings - Sensors & Accessories - Wrist Heart Rate - Status: OFF. Solved.

Just like not needing a CD player or A/C in your car but it technically being there anyway.

I absolutely understand your point , if for no other reason than to lose 1mm off the thickness if you don't need it; but for a device range starting at £500/$599, the lucky 80-90% for whom OHR works, pretty much expect OHR to be included. Setting up a whole separate product line for the 10-20% is likely simply not worth it for the premium priced ranges in this day and age (probably would make a difference on the sub £200 market).

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/01/hands-on-suuntos-spartan-sport-wrist-hr-watch.html

Some background from DCR about Suunto's philosophy and their use of the Valencell. It's mentioned that Suunto may not put wrist HR into their premier Spartan Ultra because of concerns that the higher weight of the watch could cause bouncing and therefore impair accuracy.

Rather than put the sensor on the wrist, why not put it somewhere else, allowing it to communicate to the watch via BT? Let's make proper use of that new "Peanut Pod" that Garmin introduced with the 935. We can clip it somewhere that it wouldn't be influenced by ambient light, somewhere the sun don't shine. :eek:

STREET Road

Garmin support recommended wearing the watch on the inside of my wrist. Makes sense, lighter and thinner skin. No joy for the 1st 4 hours then it started picking up my HR.

Since then it's been pretty good. While not stellar, it's getting enough data points to hopefully follow trends.

Webvan - Did you find out if the "flicker" is normal

When I take a peak the oHR is generally flickering. If I launch the HR widget or actually press a button it goes solid.

Hi Webvan,

Did you ever find out if the "flicker" is normal? Mine does it too. I get heart rates that don't make sense sometimes and I have wondered if the led's are faulty.

Yes others have commented (in this thread I think) that they have it too.

Every optical HR I've owned from Mio, to Fitbit, to Garmin flickers at all times when the LED is illuminated, its normal.

No, this is actual flickering that you can see, the FR235 doesn't do that, it appears to be "on" unless you look very closely.

If this is the flickering you are referring to then everything is fine. It's what I have seen for the last two weeks when I take a peek below the watch and my Fenix 5 hasn't dropped any HR readings so far. As soon as I am on the HR widget though the light stops flickering and stays solid until I return to the watch face.

That's it, good video ! And while my FR235's never done this the Fenix 5's oHR has worked as well as can be for an oHR (like the FR235's), i.e. quite well now for easy/tempo runs given the higher temperatures and fairly well for interval training with the first interval generally being missed and some delayed ramping down.